Political Correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)

Friday, October 05, 2007

A GREAT STORY ABOUT A GOOD MAN

Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice, is a born story-teller. At a small dinner organized by Rebecca Hagelin and Thomas' wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, in a wood-paneled room at the Heritage Foundation, the judge relaxed among friends, telling stories and laughing deeply when someone else delivered a punch line. Around Thomas were friends, old and new. National Review's Kate O'Beirne and Weekly Standards' Bill Kristol have known Thomas for years. Among Thomas' new friends were the best in bloggerdom: James Joyner, Tim Graham, James Taranto, Mary Katharine Ham, Sasha Volokh, LaShawn Barber, Erick Erickson, Paul Mirengoff , and Robery Bluey.

Before I get to the stories, here is the one-liner that will probably be all over the Internet tomorrow. Thomas was talking about how surprisingly positively he has been received in campuses around the country over the past two decades. It is mostly the faculty, not the students or the public that are tough on him. Of course, there are some law schools he does not expect an invitation from. "About the only way I would get invited to Columbia is if I was a Middle East dictator with nuclear weapons."

But it is his personal stories, some of which appear in his new book My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir that should force even his harshest critic to rethink their views. It is a tough and honest book and will draw you in.

When he said he enjoyed traveling across country in an RV-style bus, I asked him if he ever gets recognized by truckers. "The short answer is rarely." Then he proceeded to tell some stories. While driving his massive bus (and towing a Corvette behind), he stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Georgia. An intense black truck driver approached him. "Is there anyone famous on that bus?" "No, it is just me." Oh, he said and walked off. A few minutes later, the man came back. "Are you sure that there isn't anybody famous on that bus?" "No, only me." Not taking the hint, the man insisted that Thomas take his card and give it to his famous passenger. The Justice nonchalantly pocketed his card.

At another truck stop, a teamster approached him. "Did anyone ever tell you look a lot like Clarence Thomas?" Thomas wasn't sure what to say. "You must get that a lot, huh?" he said, walking away.

Some of the stories were revealing. At a gathering of black lawyers, Thomas, from the podium, could see a man in the front row, with his arms crossed and his face cross. Naturally, he shot his hand up as soon as the question session began. A long speech in lieu of a question followed, essentially asking how he can interpret the law by relying so heavily on the Founding Fathers when they did not recognize the rights of blacks? "The 13th amendment," Thomas said, citing the constitutional amendment that freed the slaves and provided for their equal rights under law. Thomas went on to take other questions. At the end of session, the man again raised his hand. In the course of an hour, his view on Thomas had changed. "They lied about you. What are we going to do?"

Thomas said that others have approached him at events, saying that their views about him had changed just by meeting him. In fact, Thomas said pointedly, he has been treated graciously everywhere he went. In the black community, most of all. It is only among Washington partisans and professors that he creates any controversy at all, he said.

He proudly said that we would not meet with the Supreme Court press corps to promote his book. He explained by garbling a line from Mark Twain (which he misattributed to Jefferson): It is like teaching a pig to sing. Pigs can't sing. You only make a fool of yourself and annoy the pig. Other justices, especially Kennedy, crave the worshipful attention of the New York Times and other elite media.

Bill Kristol, editor the Weekly Standard magazine, asked Thomas if there was any way he would consider running for president in 2012? Thomas laughed and said no. If he could have any other job, what would he want to do? He said that he would like to own "a small or medium sized business" somewhere in the south and "be a part of my community."

I believed him. He likes his Corvette and his bus and being out in the country and gets a charge out of meeting university football players. "You know, when they first meet you, there is this gap," he says, but it quickly dissipates when he chides them about last week's game. "Then you are really talking, about grades and life." I couldn't help but think that Thomas is a 19th century American in some ways, a Cincinnatus who is happy to return to the plow. There aren't many like him in public life anymore. Our Leviathan state attracts men who like power and crave the approval of other authorities. Thomas clearly couldn't care less. "I am the freest man on the court," he declares.

He also took issue with the press myth that the members of the court do not get along. In fact, they get along better than ever, thanks to the initiative of Sandra Day O'Connor. When Thomas joined the court, justices lunched alone or with their clerks. Under the constant prodding of O'Connor-here he did a dead-on imitation of her voice: "Now, Clarence, you know you have to come to this lunch"-the judges began to eat together and talk to each other more. All eight of the other justices will be attending a book event for Thomas' new book on Wednesday, a unprecedented event.

Another thing that bothers him about the court is its fixation on Ivy League pedigrees. He told a story about a woman working her way through American University law school at night. Somehow, she became an intern at the court and asked him for advice. Later, when she was in desperate straits, she applied for a secretarial job at the court. Thomas backed her, but made her promise to finish law school in four years. She did. She went on to clerk for two other federal judges. When she applied to clerk for him, he accepted her. Immediately, court watchers said she was "unqualified." Thomas shot his eyebrows up. He is clearly mad at the memory. "Unqualified? They had not seen her work. It was only because she was not a member of their [Ivy League] club." The fact that she went to law school at night must really have irked them.

He went on to talk about that over-emphasis on Ivy League degrees. Though he does hire his share of clerks from the elite law schools, he is happy to look outside it. What matters more, he said, is receiving a recommendation from someone he knows and respects. Five or six years after he arrived on the court, Thomas had lunch with C. Boyden Gray, Bush's judge-picker, at the University Club. (Back in the 1990s, I would sometimes see him in the club's well-appointed locker room, watching football or laughing at one of Judge David Sentelle's hilarious animal-rights jokes.) Thomas asked him if he (Thomas) was really the most qualified person for the opening at the Supreme Court. The idea that he might have been nominated because of his race gnawed at him. (Pause for a moment and listen to the pain in his question.) "Yes," said Gray. "Why?"

"Well," Gray explained. "No one asked what the criteria was." The president wanted someone who would not bend in office to suit the sirens at the New York Times. Thomas had endured more than 30 hostile hearings when he was chairman of the EEOC and he never backed down. He did what he thought was right and let the chips fall where they may. Whatever your views on Clarence Thomas, isn't that the singular quality we want in a Supreme Court justice?

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been doing a brisk business in harassing, entrapping, lashing, imprisoning and executing homosexuals since nearly the moment it came to power in 1979, with little notice in the West beyond the occasional human-rights report. So when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the startling claim at Columbia University last week that "we do not have homosexuals in Iran like you do in your country," it offered what could have been a learning opportunity to those who think Iran is just another misunderstood regime with an equally misunderstood president.

Such wishful thinking. The Democratic Party's presidential hopefuls spent a fair bit of time Wednesday night debating what to do about Iran, without once mentioning Ahmadinejad's peculiar world view. These are the same debaters who in August went before a gay audience to denounce Bush administration policies as "demeaning" and "degrading" toward gays. In the Nation--a magazine that excoriated Ronald Reagan upon his passing for his "inaction and bigotry against gays"--editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has nothing to say about the subject either. Instead, she devotes her latest column to denouncing last week's symbolic Senate vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.

In the Guardian, another crusading voice from the left on gay rights, foreign-affairs columnist Martin Woollacott lambastes Columbia's president Lee Bollinger for his "mean-spirited" remarks to the Iranian president, which he takes as an indication that "it is still difficult to suggest that Iran has arguments and interests worth considering on their merits." But again, no mention of Mr. Ahmadinejad's attitude toward gays, much less its "merits." And on "progressive" Web sites like Democratic Underground, there are earnest debates about exactly what Mr. Ahmadinejad meant by the word "like," as if he were merely making an academic cultural comparison rather than denying the existence of an entire category of his own citizens.

Just what one would expect from Victoria's politically correct Lesbian police chief

IMMIGRATION Minister Kevin Andrews has accused senior police of trying to paper over a serious Sudanese gang problem, but has refused to release evidence to back up claims African migrants were a major crime threat. Despite Victorian Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said Africans committed just a fraction of crime in the state and were not a problem, but Mr Andrews said anecdotal evidence suggested otherwise. The Immigration Minister cited "cabinet in confidence" for not releasing a report that he said detailed a serious problem among African refugees.

Announcing a freeze on refugees from troubled nations such as Sudan, Mr Andrews said the inability of Africans to adjust to the Australian lifestyle was a factor in the decision, which was first flagged in The Australian in February. "The advice on which we made the decision was largely material which was provided in submissions to cabinet and, as you know, cabinet submissions are confidential. But can I say that there was widespread examination of this, including by an interdepartmental committee particularly in relation to the settlement issues."

Mr Andrews said Victorian police had to admit there was a problem with violence among young African migrants. "I have anecdotal reports from police which indicate that there is a gang culture in Victoria, in some parts, and they are concerned about it," Mr Andrews said. "It concerns me that, at an official level, this seems to have been played down. But ignoring the problem won't make it go away." Police might be underplaying the seriousness of gang-related violence and refusing to label it as such in the interest of creating "a perception of community harmony", Mr Andrews said. "But the reality is that there's evidence that this is occurring," he said. "The best way to deal with it is to name the problem, for a start. If you don't name the problem, you're not going to adequately be able to deal with it."

Mr Andrews' comments came after Ms Nixon said young African men accounted for less than 1per cent of the state's crime statistics and did not present a major difficulty for law enforcement. "Even the Sudanese group, there's only really a particular group, about 100 of them actually, who are repeat offenders," Ms Nixon said. "And so they're the ones we're strongly focusing on."

Ms Nixon's official line was at odds with comments from police on the beat in Melbourne's southeast last week. "They walk around in packs," said an officer who wanted to remain anonymous. "It's a real problem at the moment for us."

John Howard said the decision to reduce intake from Africa was made as the Government adjusted its refugee program this year to favour Middle Eastern and Asian refugees, including Iraqis displaced by the war. "It's not in any way racially based but the program is just going to be rebalanced and one of the consequences of that is the reality that there will be no more people coming from Africa until at least July of next year," Mr Howard said yesterday. Mr Andrews said reducing the number of African refugees into Australia was to indicate that "we've got a challenge, we need to find a solution for it".

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here